Adrian Goldsworthy is a highly-regarded young British historian and, on the basis of his immensely readable Punic Wars, it's easy to see why. The book more than lives up to its glowing cover blurb from the great military historian John Keegan and, in fact, reminds one of his own work as Mr. Goldsworthy renders what might be confusing battle scenes with admirable clarity. Equally impressive is the way he sifts the ancient sources, highlighting long-running controversies, and explains why he makes choices among them. The focus is heavily on the actual fighting, so you'll have to look elsewhere for a thorough treatment of the politics behind it all, but he succeeds brilliantly at depicting the warfare between Rome and Carthage.

Also useful are the Preface and conclusion in which Mr. Goldsworthy explains why we should still be interested in this history. He begins by noting that when he would mention the topic on which he was writing to people they'd murmur something about the Alps but that would about exhaust their knowledge. This is undoubtedly true for almost all of us, but astonishing given how central Greek and Roman language, history, and culture were to the educations of our forebears. To have forgotten these things as a society is to have weakened one of the pillars on which they built our civilization. And if it seems unimportant to some, Mr. Goldsworthy ends by suggesting just one of the ways in which the Roman victory in the Punic Wars matters utterly to us today. it made possible the Roman Empire and within that Empire the eventual penetration of Christianity to the ends of Europe. We still live in the world these wars made possible. It's not asking much that we recall them and when a historian as deft as this comes along, it's even pleasurable to do so.